He associated their dawn and setting with certain seasons of the year.  He had a poetic nature, and he read night by night, and month by month, and year by year, the poem of the constellations, divinely rhythmic.  But two rosettes of stars especially attracted his attention while seated on the ground, or lying on his back under the open scroll of the midnight heavens—­the Pleiades, or Seven Stars, and Orion.  The former group this rustic prophet associated with the spring, as it rises about the first of May.  The latter he associated with the winter, as it comes to the meridian in January.  The Pleiades, or Seven Stars, connected with all sweetness and joy; Orion, the herald of the tempest.  The ancients were the more apt to study the physiognomy and juxtaposition of the heavenly bodies, because they thought they had a special influence upon the earth; and perhaps they were right.  If the moon every few hours lifts and lets down the tides of the Atlantic Ocean, and the electric storms of last year in the sun, by all scientific admission, affected the earth, why not the stars have proportionate effect?

And there are some things which make me think that it may not have been all superstition which connected the movements and appearance of the heavenly bodies with great moral events on earth.  Did not a meteor run on evangelistic errand on the first Christmas night, and designate the rough cradle of our Lord?  Did not the stars in their courses fight against Sisera?  Was it merely coincidental that before the destruction of Jerusalem the moon was eclipsed for twelve consecutive nights?  Did it merely happen so that a new star appeared in constellation Cassiopeia, and then disappeared just before King Charles ix. of France, who was responsible for St. Bartholomew massacre, died?  Was it without significance that in the days of the Roman Emperor Justinian war and famine were preceded by the dimness of the sun, which for nearly a year gave no more light than the moon, although there were no clouds to obscure it?

Astrology, after all, may have been something more than a brilliant heathenism.  No wonder that Amos of the text, having heard these two anthems of the stars, put down the stout rough staff of the herdsman and took into his brown hand and cut and knotted fingers the pen of a prophet, and advised the recreant people of his time to return to God, saying:  “Seek Him that maketh the Seven Stars and Orion.”  This command, which Amos gave 785 years B.C., is just as appropriate for us, 1885 A.D.

In the first place, Amos saw, as we must see, that the God who made the Pleiades and Orion must be the God of order.  It was not so much a star here and a star there that impressed the inspired herdsman, but seven in one group, and seven in the other group.  He saw that night after night and season after season and decade after decade they had kept step of light, each one in its own place, a sisterhood never clashing and never contesting precedence.  From the time